Just in case
by Izumi1909
Summary: Onni still suspects Reynir is hiding something from him, and decides to magically spy on him for a day. He ends up following the crew's first day of actually adressing many of the last battle's consequences almost through Reynir's eyes, and getting answers to a few questions he's never asked himself in addition to the one he's actually seeking.


**Note:** I have that persistent idea that Onni is so unaware of the "who's who" of the crew that he hasn't quite clicked that Reynir is actually a stowaway, and this one-shot's plot was just perfect to use the idea. The end of Chapter 14 hints Onni may actually know, so some parts may come across as contradicting canon.

 **Just in case**

Onni knew Reynir was still hiding something from him. He would have believed that Reynir was worried only about Sigrun if it weren't for his reaction when he finally left, and Onni told him to use the radio next time. He had once again hesitated before saying "Yes, the radio. I'll use that.". It couldn't be the radio being broken, as he didn't see how else Reynir could have found out he was currently comatose in the real world. Onni realized that he had recovered enough to cast a minor spell without impeding the rest of his healing. It wouldn't last more than a day, but it would hopefully more than enough to get an idea of what Reynir was hiding. He cast it on Reynir without needing to recite a runo right before the younger mage left his protected area.

The first thing of note Onni saw as Reynir woke up was Lalli sleeping under a bunk. From what he could see of what had to be the vehicle's dorm room and the number of people he knew to be on the crew, this was likely to be both a concession to Lalli's habits and a necessity. Reynir had apparently been sleeping in a set of civilian clothes. Lalli himself actually seemed to be wearing a sweater that was too big for him. The light in the room seemed to partly come from a wood stove, and partly from the door that was letting in the artificial lighting of another room. Reynir sat in his bed in such a way that Onni could actually see the other room in question. The first thing he noticed was another door at the other side of the second room, which was taped shut. In addition to the tape over the border between the door itself and the wall, two other lengths of tape were crossed over the door. There was Icelandic writing on one of the cross' upper branches: "Do not open. Especially you, Reynir.". Onni first thought that the words on the other upper branch of the cross had to be the same message in some Scandinavian language, except that there were two other familiar names in the second sentence: Sigrun and Emil. There it was. Onni knew something was up. Reynir sighed:  
-Mikkel, I know you think we are all idiots, but this may be a little too much.  
Reynir noticed at just about the same time as Onni that the vehicle was moving.  
-Looks like I slept through breakfast time...  
Reynir stretched, stood up, and grabbed a breathing mask that was hanging from a hook under the room's only upper bunk before settling it around his neck. Wait, he wasn't immune? Onni knew he wasn't on the crew for his mage powers, as he had discovered them after the expedition had started. He's also mentioned having been a sheepherder until recently, when Onni had mistaken him for an actual trained mage. But other than that, Onni had never found out why he was on the expedition in the first place.

Both Onni and Reynir noticed there were playing cards displayed on the other room's floor, right in front of the door. On his right side, they were displayed in four stacks, and on his left side, in rows of partially overlapping cards of various lengths and alternating color. A look around the door confirmed someone sitting cross-legged on the floor was indeed playing with them. The card player looked like someone had cast ten-year aging spell on Torbjörn and Siv's son Sune, and was wearing something that looked a little more like it could be a military uniform from a country that had kept its grasp on Old World technology. He was however, wearing it quite casually, with the jacket open and not seeming to have bothered with boots or gloves. Onni realized it had to be Emil. Upon seeing Reynir, he stood up, opened a closet behind him, sounded like he was turning a faucet on and off, and silently handed Reynir a cup full of water along with what seemed to be a metal canteen and a spoon. The canteen's contents were apparently still warm enough to not need any heating up on the wood stove, and Reynir ate them while sitting across the doorway between the two rooms, while watching his crewmate continue whichever card game he was playing, but not making any attempts to talk with him.

Just a few minutes after Reynir had finished his meal and put the cup, spoon and canteen away in one of the closets, the vehicle made a sudden movement that would have been quite dangerous if Reynir had not already been sitting down on the floor and leaning against one of the walls. Emil pronounced his first word as he bolted towards the dorm room:  
-Lalli!  
Reynir mumbled, while rubbing the wrist he had slightly strained in his instinctive search for balance:  
-Completely fine, having slept through it, wondering why you're disturbing his sleep if it's not time for dinner yet.  
A male voice came from the other side of the taped door, asking a question that included Emil's name in a language Onni didn't understand. Emil shouted an answer back.  
-I'm okay too, just in case anyone is wondering, Reynir added.  
The voice from the other side of the door switched to Icelandic:  
-Oh, you're awake. It was quite a nap. Did you get your food?  
That was Mikkel.  
-Yes. I finished eating it just a few minutes ago. What just happened?  
-Sigrun's learning how to drive.  
As Onni was considering this as an extra possible hint to what was going on, Reynir's following words got him really worried:  
-I get why someone would need to learn how to drive just in case, but... can't someone else do it?  
-She lied about knowing how to drive on her resume, she might as well actually learn. And I already know basic mechanics, so I'll only need to be taught the part that I don't already know.  
No, no, no, no, Onni wasn't liking the sound of this at all. He recognized these two skills, and he knew one of the reasons for which one would suddenly teach their skills to their colleagues. "Just in case", a door taped shut, Reynir not questioning the situation.  
-I see... aaah! The cards are everywhere!  
Reynir started picking up the playing cards, and eventually had to start searching for them in the dorm room. Emil was sitting cross-legged on the mattress Reynir had been using earlier, his back against the bunk under which Lalli was sleeping. He handed a few cards to Reynir with his left hand, but Reynir had to pick up a few cards that should have easily been in his right hand's range, even if he wasn't planning on moving to pick them up for some reason. Upon closer look, the thing keeping Emil's arm from moving turned out to be Lalli's own sweater-covered upper arms, clutching it against his chest. Reynir seemed to pay attention to this for a much shorter time than Onni did, and took the cards in the other room, where their box still was.

There turned out to be two cards missing, that Emil somehow managed to find and throw out of the room after Reynir stuck his hand into the doorway, showing two fingers. Reynir yelled towards the door:  
-We're good, we still have a complete set of cards.  
-Good, that could have been a disaster, answered Mikkel in a tone that made it really hard to tell whether he was joking or dead serious.  
-Hey, are you needed in the front? Lalli ambushed Emil when he went to make sure he wasn't hurt earlier, so now I don't want to give him the idea I have nothing better to do than spying on them.  
-You could always start your own game of solitaire. You have the cards and know the rules.  
-And risk needing to card-hunt again if Sigrun makes another driving mistake?  
-Promising it won't happen again before we stop would indeed be an empty promise. And this is the reason why the three of you will be slightly better off without my supervision than the two in the driver's cabin. But don't worry. With all the arm-related wounds going around and Lalli needing the sleep, we are only trying to upgrade from our battleground for today.  
So Sigrun's arm had really been hurt. "Going around" meant at least one other person with an arm wound, and Onni had a clear idea of who it might be. Come to think of it, if the wound was what he thought it was, how had it happened in the first place? Chances were than any actual discussion about that had happened before Reynir's visit to him.

They had found a forest clearing in which to stop. Onni was currently averting the spell's "eye" from a certain general direction, as the campsite happened to have a clean stream nearby and some members of the crew, Reynir included, hadn't really washed up since the battle in which Onni had assisted. Right before he went to the stream, Mikkel had told Reynir that the clothes he was currently wearing could use a wash. The change of clothes Mikkel had given Reynir was not a uniform, but a mismatched set of clothes that looked a little too big for him. Once cleaned, dressed, and a towel wrapped around his soggy braid, Reynir was asked by Mikkel to sit on a folding stool outside the tank that was facing Sigrun sitting on another stool, her arms crossed and a stern look on her face. Mikkel placed himself mid-way between the two. Sigrun talked in Norwegian, and got translated by Mikkel:  
-We need to set a few ground rules about your usage of... runes.  
That last hesitation hadn't been present in Sigrun's phrasing, so it had to come from Mikkel himself.  
-I'm sorry about that. All I really wanted to do that night was call Tuuri's brother about it in case he could help. But the second I was done with that, Lalli dragged me outside, showed me a drawing that vaguely looked like a rune, pointed to the ground and gave me a stick. I tried to make as many as possible before it got dark.  
Mikkel translated, and Sigrun spoke again, translated by Mikkel :  
-So that was his idea as well. I saw him slap that bunch of papers on your lap yesterday.  
Sigrun stayed silent a little while before speaking again via Mikkel:  
-Letting the mages take care of the magic stuff in one thing. Dragging a civilian who didn't exactly choose to be here into it, and potentially endangering him in the process, is another story. We may be in the middle of nowhere right now, but you still have the right to say "no" if you want to.  
A civilian? And what did she mean by "didn't exactly choose to be here"? Reynir answered:  
-I... really want to help. And after that night, I'm afraid saying "no" to something may mean all of you... I mean us dying. I don't want that.  
Sigrun seemed to like the answer, but also regret their situation had come to that. The discussion continued, with the laying down of a few ground rules, that ranged from "we're supposed to bring you back alive, so you have no business being outside when it's dark" to "try not to use up all our paper". By the time the discussion was finished, it was apparently time for Mikkel to start making dinner.

Right around the time dinner was ready, a yawning and still half asleep Lalli had come out of the tank, followed by Emil who seemed to be making sure he was walking in the right general direction. Reynir had been told to stay outside for dinner, since Tuuri had had breakfast with everyone else in the morning. Mikkel had come up with the idea of alternating which of the two had dinner outside while Reynir was sleeping. Lalli sat on the ground next to the stool Emil was using, and seemed to be listening intently to the conversation between Emil and Sigrun. Near the end of the meal, Sigrun asked Lalli something, to which he slowly nodded. Lalli seemed much more alert after finishing his meal, and went back inside the tank. Emil seemed to take it as a cue to quickly finish what was left of his own meal and follow him inside. Lalli emerged soon after, wearing an outfit that had to be his own uniform. He started walking towards the driver's cabin, and, for the first time, actually gave a sign of wondering why Emil was following him. From what Onni could tell, Lalli had actually asked him the question in Swedish. Lalli grunted at Emil's answer, and was still followed into the driver's cabin by the latter. Fortunately, Reynir asked the question that was shaping in Onni's mind:  
-Since when does Emil participate in Lalli's briefings?  
-Tonight's the first time, just in case, replied Mikkel.  
-I hadn't really thought about that part. Except maybe that she was going to want Lalli to learn Swedish a little faster than he already was. Good thing Onni is recovering.  
Mikkel looked like he wanted to ask Reynir something, but changed his mind at the last second.

Lalli eventually left the tank, and ran off into the wild without as much as a goodbye for anyone. Emil left the diver's cabin soon after and approached the dining site as Reynir reflexively put his mask over his mouth and nose. Now Onni had absolutely zero doubt about what Reynir had been really hiding from him. But why? Emil told Mikkel something, before the latter turned to Reynir:  
-Tuuri wants to talk to you. Through the door.  
Reynir climbed into the entrance and sat on the floor, back to the taped door.  
-Hi.  
She sounded alright, for now.  
-Hi. How's your shoulder?  
-Mikkel says the wound is healing okay. So um... Lalli said something about a ghost that was going to follow us and kill everyone if we went back to the Known World, and when I didn't believe him, he said you had heard it too.  
Reynir went on to describe the little he knew of the ghost. That little, however, felt eerily familiar to Onni. Far too much like "it". What, exactly, had they stirred up out there?  
-Actually, come to think of it, I'm surprised he's still going out to scout knowing this.  
-I pointed out that if we end up needing to stay here longer, that Danish outpost will be better for a long-term stay than just stopping to travel. Being there will enable us to explain the situation to people on the ship, even if they don't bring us back. They may also have real mage aboard... no offense.  
-I'm on something like my third week of even knowing I'm a mage, none taken. So he'll scout the route until we get there?  
-Yes.  
-Oh, by the way, I checked on Onni last night. He said he was in the process of healing. He asked after you and Lalli.  
-Guess that's... good. You… didn't tell him, did you?  
Reynir started fiddling with his braid:  
-Well, he noticed I was lying when I claimed everyone was fine so... don't be surprised if he already knows that Sigrun's arm is in bad shape when you get to talk to him on the radio. At least, he seemed to believe this was the only thing I was hiding. But it was still quite close, so I think I'll avoid going to see him until he wakes up.  
-Thank you for that. I really want to tell him myself.  
So that was why Reynir had told him nothing. Onni realized that if she was really waiting to for him to wake up to tell him, he'd better recover as fast as possible so she'd be able to knowingly do so. But he was now curious about of plenty of other things he'd seen and heard during the day, so he might as well continue paying attention until the spell faded out or Reynir went back to sleep, whatever happened first. After a short silence, Tuuri talked again:  
-By the way, did we just manage to spend more than a full day without talking to each other? I never thought that would happen, at least before we were on the way home.  
-Well, you were busy getting stitched up and repairing the floor for most of yesterday, and nobody would let me be anywhere near you.  
"Repairing the floor"? Had something got in through there? Unfortunately, Onni had no control on where the conversation went. Fortunately, it didn't end up being about something that completely disinterested him.

Tuuri had considered the fact that if she was indeed infected, she would have to rely on someone else to keep an eye on Lalli. Among the other crew members, Emil had already taken to do exactly that while on the field due to the "can't take care of myself" signal Lalli sometimes accidentally gave people he met for the first time. Onni remembered Emil bolting into the dorm room just a little earlier in the day. Lalli, in turn, had apparently latched onto Emil on some level. Onni realized Emil had to be that "Maybe, I think" friend that Lalli had mentioned near the beginning of the expedition. Onni quickly found out that Emil was the one person in the crew that Reynir hadn't really gotten to know, which made him just as curious as Onni was about how he was handling being asked to be responsible for Lalli.  
-I don't think he fully realized that I could very well be dying until I asked him. But he said he'd do it if it was needed. I keep forgetting he'd be the less experienced one of us all if you weren't here. But he seems to understand things about Lalli that would take ages to explain to anyone else... honestly, I sometimes feel that he somehow noticed a thing or two that both Onni and I have managed to miss all these years. The time saved by prior knowledge is precious when there is little time to teach...  
-In that case, you should have better things to do than talking to me. Like telling Sigrun that I heard the ghost also and things like that. You know what, Sigrun seemed a little bothered about the quantity of paper I used yesterday and I just realized that the broken parts of the floor could replace that if I can grab them before they all get used as firewood. Bye.

Reynir went back into the dorm room and shuffled through a bunch of wood Onni hadn't notice when Reynir had woken up and searched for the cards. It included broken floorboards, some of which had been sawed in smaller pieces to be able to fit in the stove. This resulted in the presence of a few well-cut slates of wood that would indeed make a decent medium for a drawing someone would want to last. Reyir's mumbling finally gave Onni one of the pieces of information he was seeking:  
-That was stupid, that troll getting through the floor is the only reason I can grab these in the first place... she's probably mad at me for reminding her of it right now...  
He poked his head out of the room, showing an already darkened sky:  
-And the paint is in the back... tomorrow, then.  
He took his borrowed sweater off, wrapped the slates of wood in it at put the resulting pack under the bunk under which Lalli hadn't been sleeping earlier. I was probably best that Reynir went back to bed quickly, so Onni could stop sticking around in the faint hope that someone would bring up the reason of Reynir's presence before the end of the day, and fully process what he had already discovered during the day.

Mikkel came into the room:  
-Having an early night? Good, we all have sleep to catch up on.  
Mikkel took his boots, gloves and jacket off. Sigrun and Emil soon came into the room to do the same, then settle on what Onni guessed to be their respective bunks. With Emil taking the one under which Reynir had stored his stuff, Sigrun taking the upper one, and Mikkel laying a mattress next to Reynir's, the bunk under which Lalli had been sleeping remained empty. Sigrun said something that Mikkel translated:  
-Sigrun says that she thinks it's silly for us to both be on the floor when there is a bunk available. I will understand if you don't want to sleep on Tuuri's bunk, even though you've used it as a seat plenty of times.  
Of course that bunk was supposed to be Tuuri's. Where else would Lalli be sleeping? Reynir briefly looked in the taped door's direction:  
-Just in case she gets to sleep here again...  
Reynir lied down on the same mattress on which he had woken up that morning, pulled the blanket over himself and closed his eyes. Did Reynir really think... had anyone told him what the chances of her not being infected actually were? There was a reason that disease had wiped out most of the world. The spell was starting to fade, sign that Reynir was falling asleep. Onni, however, had to admit one thing about him: if he had really "not exactly chosen" to be on this expedition, it was impressive that he had held out as long as he had already did. Onni was quite sure he wouldn't have been able to do such a thing himself.


End file.
